Public Address | Cafe | Hard News: Mt Albert: Cooperating, competing and carpooling

Sacha

Fri, 03 Mar 2017 00:22:18 +1300

If Lab do not lift their party vote, list places will be scant anyway (including his).

Ben Austin

Thu, 02 Mar 2017 23:57:34 +1300

Assuming Labour holds Rongotai, doesn't this make Little's life a little easier? He's now got more wriggle room on his List

Hilary Stace

Thu, 02 Mar 2017 10:49:52 +1300

By old I mean over 65. Not many of those in parliament, yet lots of voters. The Gold Card, National Superannuation beneficiary, aged care etc, group need representation – you could argue.

Sacha

Thu, 02 Mar 2017 10:05:06 +1300

I disagree that there are too many old people in parliament.

Graph shows too many middle-aged to be directly representative (though I'd expect that because of the nature of the role). Not enough other diversity yet, for sure.

mark taslov

Thu, 02 Mar 2017 09:57:15 +1300

"in the safe hands of a younger generation"

That certainly allays any lingering concerns I might have had.

Hilary Stace

Thu, 02 Mar 2017 09:42:06 +1300

I disagree that there are too many old people in parliament. Not enough diversity of ages, backgrounds and expertise is more accurate. Where are our 24% of MPs identifying as disabled? Why haven’t we ever had an MP with Down Syndrome?

Regarding Trevor and age specifically, he has stepped down…

Tom Semmens

Thu, 02 Mar 2017 07:57:07 +1300

Life is journey which includes some unpleasant realities. Baby boomers and Generation Xer’s are guilty of clinging on far past their use by dates. In life you are relevant, then experienced, then wise, then past it. The trick is to know when you enter each phase and accept the process…

izogi

Wed, 01 Mar 2017 15:24:50 +1300

Do you think he helps Labour get elected, though? Unless Labour's actually forming a government, having someone who'd be an excellent Speaker doesn't seem like a priority to me. Voters seem to care about who might be PM, or in charge of the Finance portfolio, but as far as I…

mark taslov

Wed, 01 Mar 2017 15:03:09 +1300

as well as suggesting a preference for Ardern was “ageist”, King added it was “sexist”.

Which it absolutely is, with or without the paternalistic parenthetical quotation marks.

Little was asked about that prospect at Ardern’s victory party last night and said there was “no vacancy” and he wasn’t “planning any changes”.…

Hilary Stace

Wed, 01 Mar 2017 14:27:27 +1300

Speaker is a vital role and Trevor would be excellent at it. We need some senior MPs as they have extensive institutional knowledge and can mentor newer MPs.

mark taslov

Wed, 01 Mar 2017 14:05:26 +1300

She’s a senior Labour MP and she’s still in her mid-30s

If I had to pick someone from the Labour camp based on current form I’d go with Phil Twyford sans jingoism.

izogi

Wed, 01 Mar 2017 13:55:22 +1300

Annette King has just resigned and Ardern the blessed successor..

I'll be interested to see how far Labour takes this.

I guess there are arguments on both sides around this around the value of experience, but especially after the last election with such a low Party vote, it really seemed…

Walter Nicholls

Wed, 01 Mar 2017 09:49:41 +1300

> OMG JACINDA’S SO POPULAR SHE SHOULD REALLY BE DEPUTY LEADER
> Because of course what Labour needs in election year is yet another leadership shakeup.

And in the news this morning, Annette King has just resigned and Ardern the blessed successor.. cue the media frenzy

Rob Hosking

Tue, 28 Feb 2017 13:49:27 +1300

..though it should be noted Labour sent a pretty clear message to its supporters to back Winston. http://i.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/67099070/andrew-little-prods-northland-to-vote-for-winston-peters

Rob Hosking

Tue, 28 Feb 2017 13:46:24 +1300

Gahh. Memory playing tricks.

Humbled.

Ian Dalziel

Tue, 28 Feb 2017 10:36:00 +1300

Labour did put up a candidate in the Northland by-election
Allow me to be your, er, corroboree?:

BONNER, Adrian Paul IND 17
CARR, Joe FNZ 113
GRIEVE, Robin ACT 68
HERBERT, Maki ALCP 94
HOLLAND, Adam IND 16
OSBORNE, Mark NAT 11,648
PAINTING, Rob CLI 39
PETERS, Winston NZF 16,089…

KathrynB

Tue, 28 Feb 2017 10:13:41 +1300

Labour did put up a candidate in the Northland by-election – as a political journalist you should know that.

Sacha

Tue, 28 Feb 2017 09:41:30 +1300

She might want to start a family.

Has been quoted explicitly saying that.

Hilary Stace

Tue, 28 Feb 2017 09:00:32 +1300

I wish the media (like Tracy Watkins in DomPost today) would stop bullying Jacinda about the Labour Party leadership. She's just won an electorate with all the responsibilities that requires. She might want to start a family. She's a senior Labour MP and she's still in her mid-30s. Surely that's…

Rob Hosking

Tue, 28 Feb 2017 08:41:13 +1300

Certain political commentators' fevered predictions that National voters would rush to cast tactical votes for the Green candidate, thus handing Labour a humiliating defeat on home turf, didn't pan out – because normal people don't act that way, especially not on a balmy Saturday in February.

*polite cough* as a…

Ben Austin

Tue, 28 Feb 2017 00:03:44 +1300

Indeed. I would imagine it is probably one of those topics that they've argued about endlessly. It does take a lot of organisation and people though and maybe they just know they don't have it.

I've long wondered why they haven't copied say the Lib Dem playbook from the UK…

Craig Ranapia

Mon, 27 Feb 2017 23:47:21 +1300

They'd have lost, like they did last year in Roskill, and that would have been a symbolically awful start to election year for the new leader.

Sure – and it's no state secret that National has roughly the same ground force in Mount Albert that Labour does in North Shore.…

Russell Brown

Mon, 27 Feb 2017 23:01:29 +1300

What I meant to say is that having a solid GOTV operation is probably not something the Greens really need to have, being a Party/List vote organisation. I’m sure they could build one here and there (Wellington Central?) but that might distract/divert resources from what already works for them.

But…

Ben Austin

Mon, 27 Feb 2017 22:08:21 +1300

Whoops, cut that off awkwardly.

What I meant to say is that having a solid GOTV operation is probably not something the Greens really need to have, being a Party/List vote organisation. I'm sure they could build one here and there (Wellington Central?) but that might distract/divert resources from what…

Ben Austin

Mon, 27 Feb 2017 21:50:49 +1300

Reports from the ground indicate that the Green Party didn't really have much of a Get Out the Vote machine compared to Labour. Not suprising, but that

Kevin McCready

Mon, 27 Feb 2017 19:05:21 +1300

Would be nice if the Green/Labour coalition could agree on preferential counting in electorate seats. This would be a simple interim step for electoral reform until we get proportional representation in electoral seats. It would eliminate strategic voting and be a plus for NZ democracy.
https://kmccready.wordpress.com/2015/03/29/preferential-counting-in-nz-electorate-seats/

Helga

Mon, 27 Feb 2017 15:14:09 +1300

I think the latter. Melissa Lee making a showing anything like the one she made last time; straight after Parmjeet P's dreadful fist if Mt Roskill, was more than they could bear the prospect of.

Ian Dalziel

Mon, 27 Feb 2017 14:50:25 +1300

No noise complaints about the Pt Chev Bowls Club on Saturday night, I hope?
;- )

Lynn Yum

Mon, 27 Feb 2017 14:28:03 +1300

As someone living under the iron heels of Jonathan Coleman (ok I jest) I am pretty envious of the Mt. Albert by-election: a real contest rather than a coronation.

From what I can hear Ardern is clearly the candidate who did most of her homework, and sounded the most impressive,…

Grant McDougall

Mon, 27 Feb 2017 13:32:46 +1300

The way much of the news media sees it, on the other hand, is OMG JACINDA’S SO POPULAR SHE SHOULD REALLY BE DEPUTY LEADER AND MAYBE EVEN LEADER

An idea not helped by the schmucks at One News who had Ms Ardern captioned as "JACINDA ARDERN LABOUR LEADER" last night…

nzlemming

Mon, 27 Feb 2017 12:59:18 +1300

Probably also Melissa Lee would have said something terrible.

Russell Brown

Mon, 27 Feb 2017 12:06:34 +1300

Why did National not stand a candidate?

They'd have lost, like they did last year in Roskill, and that would have been a symbolically awful start to election year for the new leader.

Probably also Melissa Lee would have said something terrible.

EE

Mon, 27 Feb 2017 11:53:38 +1300

Why did National not stand a candidate? Did they hope that this would split the Labour and Green parties? (FAIL) ... Or did they think Melissa Lee was just not a very good candidate?

Tristan

Mon, 27 Feb 2017 11:35:55 +1300

Jacinda has this rare quality in a politician. She always sounds sincere and genuine.

I know it drives the tories nuts that her sincerity doesn't seem to switch off when the cameras do

Deborah

Mon, 27 Feb 2017 11:22:53 +1300

:-) Thank you!

I loved being part of the Get Out The Vote push on Saturday. I was doorknocking in Sandringham, and there was so much support for Jacinda. So our big task was to get all those people out to vote. And they did.

Julie Anne Genter came along…

Russell Brown

Mon, 27 Feb 2017 10:41:18 +1300

Here’s Jacinda Ardern’s robocall. The receiver comes down with quite a crunch at the end.

Public Address

Mon, 27 Feb 2017 10:41:18 +1300

Discussion from blog post.